Read Online My Heart for Yours by Jolene Perry, Stephanie Campbell - Free Book Online

the ditch, looking for whoever ‘they’ were, but the trees and grasses were too thick there. I couldn’t see anything but light behind the woods.
     
    “ Leslie, what’s going on?” Her long hair was stringy and damp with tears. She either didn’t hear me, or she didn’t know how to respond. “Leslie, where’s Traive?” Traive and Leslie had gotten married while they were still in high school. I don’t think I’d ever seen one without the other. She gulped loudly.
     
    “ The train…” gulp, wail, cough, “he didn’t move when the…the…” She crouched back down and I realized I wasn’t going to get anywhere with her. I pulled off my hoodie and wrapped it around her shoulders. I wasn’t sure if she was shaking because she was cold or not, but I had to do something before I left her sitting there.
     
    I jogged down the hill and through the trees. The branches whipped across my arms and the bushes scratched at my legs. When I got to a clearing, I was blinded by the spot light from the train stopped on the tracks. I had to step over piles of beer bottles that littered the ground. There was a cop talking to the driver of the train. I could tell by his uniform that he worked for the railroad. His hand was on his shiny forehead and he just kept shaking it back and forth. It was then that it finally dawned on me. It hadn’t been more than two hours since I’d last talked to Eamon.
     
    “ Wanna get a beer after I get off of work?” I’d asked.
     
    “ Nah, man. I’m meeting up with Traive and Leslie. We’re gonna have a few drinks, maybe go sleep out at their camp. You game?”
     
    I passed. I had to work in the morning. So where was Traive now? What the hell happened here? I made my way toward the cop.
     
    Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. The gravel near the tracks crunched under my heavy boots and alerted him that I was coming. He looked up.
     
    “ Son, you can’t be down here,” he said.
     
    “ I’m just looking for my friend. What’s going on?” I kept my eyes fixed on the train. Even though it was parked and obviously not going anywhere, it’s size made me nervous. The train track arms regularly malfunctioned up on the main road, staying down with lights flashing for days sometimes. Everyone else would pause before weaving around them and continuing on their way. I couldn’t. I came to a complete stop and waited. And waited. Until someone honked, annoyed by my caution.
     
    “ Tobin?” Traive’s voice came out of the darkness to my left. He half-ran, half-stumbled toward me.
     
    “ Are you okay, dude? Your wife is up there hyperventilating,” I said to him with a small chuckle.
     
    The closer he got, the more I could tell that things were definitely not okay. His eyes were red and wild.
     
    “ Tobin,” he repeated. He latched on to me, and I couldn’t help but feel a little awkward by the show of affection. My eyes searched the woods as he sobbed into my shoulder.
     
    And then I saw it.
     
    A single Chuck Taylor. Faded. Blue. Tossed to the side of the tracks. With no owner.
     
    “ Wait,” I pushed away from Traive. “Wait!” I repeated. My brain was trying to process everything, but at the same time trying to deny what I thought I knew.
     
    “ Where’s Eamon?” I yelled.
     
    “ We tried to tell him, Tobin. We yelled. I tried to go to him, but Leslie wouldn’t let me. He just didn’t move,” Traive said.
     
    I felt the woods start to spin. I really took in the scene. The medics on the other side of the train. The stretcher. It was covered with a sheet.
     
    There was something under it.
     
    Someone.
     
    My brother.
     
    ***
     

     
    “ Tobin, you home, baby?” Mom calls.
     
    I take one more deep breath and round the corner into the kitchen. Mom and Dad are sitting at the breakfast table with plates of untouched food in front of them. The trashcan is overflowing. The only light on is the one above the sink. Its bulb is about to burn out so it flashes every few